Reddit 90/10 rule: why the ratio will not protect you

The Reddit 90/10 rule says about one post in ten can promote your own work. Treat it as an old habit, not a safety limit. The Reddit Rules name no ratio, and moderators judge your replies inside their own community. A founder can hit 90/10 and still get removed, or stay under it and still look like an advertiser.

The ratio is popular because it feels like a clear number. You count, you pass, you post your link. Reddit does not work like that, and the evidence below shows why. For the full routine, read how to promote your SaaS on Reddit without getting banned. This post makes one narrow argument: stop counting.

Where the Reddit 90/10 rule came from

In a June 2026 breakdown, Alex Berman describes the original version as nine non-promotional posts for every self-promotional one, and says Reddit published it as official guidance in its early years. He also says Reddit later retired the formal rule because people gamed it. They wrote low-effort comments to hit the number, then dropped product links. That is one practitioner's account and it gives no date, so read it as history, not as policy.

The primary text is easier to check. The Reddit Rules page holds no percentage and no ratio of any kind. Rule 2 asks you to abide by community rules, to participate authentically in communities where you have a personal interest, and not to spam. Rule 5 says you do not have to use your real name, but you must not intentionally mislead others.

Reddit's transparency report adds that it clarified Rule 2 on spam and community disruption in October 2025, with more examples of what may or may not break it. So when a guide calls 90/10 the law, ask where it is written. Then read the rules of the community you want to post in, because that is where your reply gets judged.

Moderators remove more than Reddit does

The clearest evidence against a single site-wide number is who does the removing. In the second half of 2025, Redditors created 2,210,675,258 posts and comments. In the same six months, 154,198,211 of them were removed, 52.7% by mods and 44.7% by admins. Here is what that means, with the arithmetic shown.

• Share removed: 154,198,211 / 2,210,675,258 = about 7%, or roughly 1 in 14.
• Removed by mods: 154,198,211 x 52.7% = about 81.3 million posts and comments.
• Removed by mods per day: 81.3 million / 184 days (July to December) = about 442,000.

Two limits apply to these figures. They cover every removal reason, not only promotion. They also include automated removals, such as those from AutoModerator, which mods set up for their own community. Even so, the direction is plain: most removals come from the people and tools of each community, and those people set their own limits.

Those limits vary widely. Berman notes that some subreddits ban self-promotion outright, some allow it only in weekly threads, and some need moderator approval first. No overall ratio tells you which case you are in. An account at 5% can break a rule that allows 0%. Reddit itself still acts on spam at scale: spam was the majority of admin removals at 54%, and admins issued 3,181,420 temporary and permanent account bans for all reasons in that period.

A 90/10 account can still look like an ad

Here is a worked example with a hypothetical founder of a scheduling tool for dentists. The comment counts are an illustration, not a limit Reddit publishes. Compare two accounts.

• Account A: 90 comments in hobby communities, plus 10 comments in two communities for dental offices, and all 10 name the product.
• Account A overall: 10 / 100 = 10%. It passes the 90/10 rule.
• Account A where buyers read: 10 / 10 = 100% promotion.
• Account B: 26 comments in the same two communities, and 2 of them name the product.
• Account B overall and where buyers read: 2 / 26 = about 8%.

Both accounts pass the ratio. Only one looks like a member to the practice managers who might buy. Account A did 74 more comments of work, and its effort went to the wrong place. Berman writes that moderators typically check posting history, the quality of the post, and whether it makes sense without the product mention. The overall ratio answers none of those three questions.

The ratio also rewards the wrong writing. If 90 comments only exist to earn 10 links, they tend to be short and empty. That is the same behavior Berman says killed the formal rule. Fewer comments that take real knowledge do more for you, because each one is also useful to a possible buyer.

What to check instead of the 90/10 rule

Replace the count with a few questions you ask before each reply. They take about a minute, and they match what a moderator can see.

• Does this community allow links to your own product, and where? Read the sidebar and the pinned posts.
• Does the reply still help if you delete the sentence about your product?
• Did the person ask for a tool, or are you adding one to a thread about something else?
• Did you say that you built it, in plain words?
• If a moderator opens your last 20 comments in this community, do they see a member or a campaign?
• Did this community already remove two of your replies? Then stop and read its rules again.

The disclosure question matters beyond Reddit culture. Rule 5 bars intentionally misleading people. In the US, the FTC's guides on endorsements say that a connection the audience does not expect must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and that a business relationship can count. A founder who praises a product from an account that looks like a happy customer is taking that risk. Saying "I built this" costs one line. This is general information, not legal advice.

The second question decides more than it seems. A reply that only works with your link in it is an ad. A reply that fully answers the question, then adds one honest line, is a contribution with a disclosure. Moderators and readers can tell the two apart.

Other communities show the same logic

Hacker News is a useful comparison, because its rules are short and public. Its guidelines ask you not to use the site primarily for promotion, and say posting your own work part of the time is fine. They give no ratio either. They also ask you not to solicit upvotes, comments or submissions. If you plan a launch there, this guide to a Show HN post covers the details.

The pattern is the same in both places. Each one describes how a person should behave, and leaves the judgment to people who read your history. A number cannot stand in for that judgment, so a founder's time goes further on threads where the product is a fair answer.

Those threads are the hard part to find. The ones worth your time have a person who already asks for a product like yours, and the words buyers use when they do that rarely match your category name. LitePal finds such public conversations on Reddit, Hacker News, X and Threads, and drafts a reply for each. The founder edits the draft and posts it from their own account, so the judgment above stays with them.

Paste your site into LitePal and see the threads where people already ask for a product like yours, each with a reply drafted for you to check against that community's rules.